Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 19:14:43 -0800 From: W Gerald Hicks <jhix@mindspring.com> To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG (freebsd-chat) Subject: Re: funny repair remark Message-ID: <200001220314.TAA03896@mindspring.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 22 Jan 2000 02:00:19 GMT." <200001220200.TAA26106@usr09.primenet.com>
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> > >The AS/400 is unsuited to running C. It uses a 64 bit pointer, > > >8 bits of which are a check-value. This means that running C > > >code that does pointer arithmatic or array indexing would be > > >nearly impossible with a free compiler. Well, sorta :-) The machine that uses those pointers is a virtual machine, down deep under the covers you'll find that the processors are now POWER architecture, although I don't think the first AS400s were. Now, none of the "real computer in there" is directly accessible by customers and not even known by a lot of people outside IBM Rochester. The AS400 was derived of the System 38, a product of IBM's Advanced Systems Group. I remember in the early eighties getting my hands on an S/38 architecture document that really surprised me; It was quite a conventional looking 32-bit processor buried in there with lots of general purpose registers (32) and a really nifty looking virtual memory management arrangement. I also remember a slight sense of deja-Vu some years later studying Intel's new 386 and wondering about that IBM copyright on top of the chip ;-) > > > > So do AS/400 programmers use proprietary C compilers or do they write > > in another language? > > Proprietary C compilers. For the p-machine too, not the native one :-( C/400 came out after I swore off working on AS400s. During the period I worked on the pre-release AS400 (Silverlake was the code name) we used Pascal, the p-machine's assembly language PL/MI [machine interface] and (UGH!) RPG/400. PL/MI is also what they use for the compiler IR. I know some business programmer types who *really* know how to do database apps on these systems. Cheers, Jerry Hicks jhix@mindspring.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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